Make Your HDR Photos More Realistic in Lightroom

When I first started making HDR photos I made some very baked looking creations. Looking back on them now I cringe a little. You can click on the HDR tab on the side of this post, and scroll back to some of those early days. I would use HDR processing on everything when I first found it. I would completely process the photos in Photomatix Pro, and they would not look very good in the end. Later on I found out that I could edit the 32 bit file that shows up in the preview in Photomatix Pro, and have a much better looking photo. You just have to save as at the 32 bit screen in Photomatix. You can see a more detailed breakdown of the process in the videos below. Below are a couple of examples of this process in action. It is a great way to get the pixels that you need, but still have a realistic looking photo in the end.